Fluid-meter.



H. c. HAYES.

num METER.

Y v APPLICATION FILED MAR. 2l' I9I3. 191419631 1 Patented June 1, 1915.

Fr EL 1 'HARVEY c. HAYES, oE GAMBEIDGE, MAssAcHUsET'rs, AssIGNoE. or rouw-MEE ormv EUNDEEDrHs 'ro EDWIN w. NICK, Aor' ERIE, rENNsYLvANm.

FLUID-METER.

#meer iTc all 'whom it muy concern:

Be `it known that I, HARVEY-C. HAYES, a citizen of the United States, and resident of Cambridge, in the county of Middlesex and State of Massachusetts, have invented new and useful Improvements in 'Fluid-Meters, of which thefollowin'g is a specication:

My invention relates to measuring 1n` struments, i. e. meters, for ascertaining and measuring the characteristics-l of moving iiuids, particularly the .velocity o f How, and density of such fluids in motion, and cony sists 1n novel apparatusof this general char- T; and Fig. 3 is a section of Fig. '1,'.taken through the pressure tap T,flongitdinally.

The meter illustrated in the drawings is adapted to form part of a conduit through which liuid Hows. The tube S leads the fluid to the meter, and enters the vortex chamber S obliquely, or as nearly tangentially as structural limitations will allow, In flowing through the chamber S, the fluid is thus whirled, forming a vortex. In the form of meter, illustrated in the drawings, the outlet from the chamberS is at the end of the chamber, at O. With this arrangement `the movement of fiuid through the chamber S will be a spiral vortex. At or near the axis of the vortex produced by ow of fluid a pressure tap T is placed, this being a tube with its hopem'ngtoward the outlet O, and communicating withy 'one branch of the manometer M.

Thepressure tap T is radially external to the pressure tap T and preferably is formed in the wall of the vortex chamber S in nearly the same plane--transversely of the chamber, as the opening of the pressure tap T. The tap T is connected with. the

other branch of the manometer M, which.

p constitutesmeans to determine the difference in fluid'pressure at the two taps.

. When iiuid flows through the chamber S Specification VofA Letters Patent.

Patented .rune if, rais.

Application led March 21, 1913. ASerial No. 755,959. vk

from inlet S to outlet O, it forms a vertex abo11t;the pressure tap T and as the vortex 1s spiral, flowing toward .the outlet O, the fluid streams past thev pressure Atap T 'as well as rotates about it. Thus there are pro-vv Y pressure at tap T.- The pressure at T may fall below atmospheric pressure, while that at the tap T may rise considerably above the pressure of fiuid as measured normally to the' side of the inlet pipe S. In a meter of this character, a flow of water at the rate of five feet per second has produced a differL encein level of twenty feet in a water, manometer. Since the difference in pressures at the central and peripheral taps respectively is so high, even with a moderaterate of Vflow in the meter itself, it followsthat the meteris highly sensitive, and

susceptible of great accuracy. Y

In using such a meter, the characteristics of a fluid under observation are velocity and density, and either may be deducedfromthe other by means of such a meter as above described.

The conditionsof observation and performance may be so controlled '4 that either the density or velocity is a known or determined quantity, in otherI wcrdsthe apparatus and its functionally contributory environment may be A sc managed that one of the two factors, both, of which, generally speaking, are variable, becomes a constant. Thus, if the density be predetermined, as by the admission of but'one gas at constant veo temperature, to the meter, its velocity is at once determinable from the vpressure differential. Or, if the conditions of employment of the meter are qualied by substantially constant velocity, variations in density can be likewise determined.- This, for instance,

' mightwell be the case with flue-gases, which iiow at a very nearly uniform rate and present but slight temperature fluctuations, but which vary in content of CO2. Variation of this kind produces variations in density; the pressure differential at themeter serves to determine the density .Huctuations, and

ply from the main will vary from this standard, and both velocity and density of gas passing through a' meter vvill fluctuate. By vperiodlcally notin the dlerential in pressure indicated byt e meter hereinabove described, a curve may be plotted which, Aby comparison with a standard of reference, Such as the velocity produced by gas of standard density, represents the volume delivered i in terms of standard density.

. Paying by the record of such a meter the consumer Will be charged for exactly what he received, namely,y the equivalent Voi" so many thousand cubic feet of gas at standard density, instead of being charged, as now, with so many thousand cubic feet of gas, Without respect to density.

I-claimz. t

1. In a fluid meter, a chamber having an inlet and outlet for Huid to be measured, arranged to whirl the iiuid in a spiral vortex in transit through the chamber, pressure taps from the chamber, one near the vortex Vcenter with its aperture pointing in the axial and pressure taps from the vortexchamber, j

one nearer the center of the vortex than the other, and means to determine the difference of iuid pressure at the taps.

3..In a Huid meter, a vortex chamber, an inlet andnutlet therefor, a pressure tap at the'axis of the vortex chamber andopening toward the outlet, and another pressure tap near the periphery of the vortex, and means to determine the difference of fluid pressure at the taps. y

4. In a fluid meter, a vortex chamber, `a tangential inlet and axial outlet therefor, a pressure tap at the axis of the vortex chamber and opening toward the outlet, and another pressure tap near thel periphery-of the vortex, and means to determine the difference of fluid pressure at the taps. A

Signed by me at Boston, Massachusetts, this twenty-sixth day of February, 1913.

HARVEAYC. HAYES. Witnesses:

ODIN ROBERTS, JOSEPHINE H. RYAN. 

